(VW) Buggin’ Out In The Yard
By Nora Grace-Flood for Independent Review Crew
October 7, 2024
Clark Bedford moved his ancient, trash-packed Volkswagen out of his Maryland driveway — and into a contemporary art gallery.
“Art Car,” the junk-adorned car that Bedford built to bedazzle his otherwise boring suburban neighborhood, is part of the exhibit Where I Learned To Look: Art From The Yard, currently on display at University of Pennsylvania’s Institute of Contemporary Art.
The one-room show, curated by artist Josh T. Franco, is like a turbo-mode roadtrip across America.
The exhibit begins with Franco’s dioramic, immersive film of a Texan family building a shrine to an Aztec god in their backyard. A series of painted screens recalls the Baltimore tradition of painting mesh window protectors to allow both airflow and privacy. A row of photos of abandoned cars by Wendy Red Star printed on colorful fabric illustrates the material waste that decorates the Crow reservation. Another video casts riding and push lawn mowers as competitors, mashing up advertisements for the machinery with racing music and time lapses of flowers blooming and grass growing.